From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [155]
Chief Choate just looked at him stolidly, untouched, but Maggio who was watching him too was touched. Something like Humphrey Bogart, Maggio thought, something like a skull, more like a skull, a lipless cheekless deathshead skull.
“I can take everything they hand out,” Prew grinned, “and ask for more.”
“Yas,” Maggio said, “and me too.”
“Do you want a busted head, kid?” Chief Choate asked him seriously.
“No,” Maggio said.
“Then keep your big yap shut. This is serious. And if you smart, you keep your big nose out altogether. This is his fight. You ony make it worse on him by gettin in.”
“Thats right, Angelo,” Prew grinned, feeling the stiffness soften as he looked at the furious narrowshouldered little Wop.
“I hate to see somebody get screwed,” Maggio said.
“Then you might as well get use to it,” the Chief said. “You probly be seein it often before you die.
“I dont see why you want to do it,” he said to Prew. “You ony makin it hard on yourself. But thats your business, its none of my affair. I hate to see you fuck up, is all.”
“You refused to fight for Dynamite yourself, once.”
“Yas, but with me I knew what was the story. I had enough pull in Regmint I could make it stick. You cant.”
“Maybe not. We’ll see. I aint never refused a order yet, when its official duty. But I dont think they got the right to order me what to do outside of duty hours.”
“It aint a question of right or wrong, its a question of fack. But there is awys been a question if there is any outside duty hours for a soljer, whether the soljer has the right to be a man.”
“And its gettin more and more that way lately, in this world all over.”
“And not ony in the Army,” Maggio put in, and Prew could see that Angelo was remembering Gimbel’s Basement.
“Thats right,” Chief Choate said. “And so what?”
“So this duty stuff is okay, maybe,” Maggio said, “for wartime. In wartime a soljer’s awys under orders. But not in peacetime.”
“Been wartime,” Chief Choate said, “ever since I enlisted. And thats thirteen years ago. For an army, its awys wartime.”
“Thats right,” Prew said. “There aint no peacetime army. But what I dont believe, is that the Regimental Boxing Squad, or fighting for the Regimental Boxing Squad, is essential to the perpetual war effort.”
“You ast Dynamite what he thinks,” the Chief said, “and see what he says.”
“Hell,” Angelo Maggio said. “Thats no problem, Mr. Anthony. Dynamite’s so full of West Point propaganda it runs out of his ears an leaves a yellow stream behind him.”
“Maybe,” the Chief said, “but he’s the Compny Commander.”
From out in the quad the guard bugle sounded Drill Call imperatively and Chief Choate got up from the bunk, looking at Prew blankly searchingly.
“Well,” he said. “Well, I see you.”
“In the Stockade,” Prew grinned, and watched the big man dogtrotting lumberingly graceful down the aisle to his end bunk, to get his equipment on. Then he picked up the bayonet scabbard he had forgotten and worked a hook into the wide length of cartridge belt under the old third pocket.
“Nice homecoming gift,” he said.
“To hell with them,” Angelo Maggio said. “All of them. They cant do nothing. What can they do?”
“Sure,” Prew said and hooked in the other hook and shook them down into the belt, watching the Chief buckling into field training harness, the bayonet that became a toothpick when it hung on him, the light pack that looked like a matchbox on his back, the big hefty Springfield ’03 like a Woolworth imitation of itself for small boys when the big fist picked it up.
“Him too,” Angelo said. “A fine pal.”
“No, he’s all right.” When times changed, you accepted it. The days of Jeb Stuart and the plumed hats and the highwayman came riding, riding up to the old inn door; that was the Civil War, that wasnt now. The days when